Saturday, 28 January 2012

I thought I'd add a few things I've noticed while going through the Mother 3 maps. I'm sure a lot of these have been pointed out, but I felt like posting them all in once place. (These images were ripped from the maps themselves, so sorry if the resized pictures make it hard to see some things.)

Sheriff's Office next to a teepee. It gets destroyed during the time skip. I'm pretty sure this is an allusion to cowboys and Indians. Also, there is a poster for The Who on the fence if I recall correctly.

There's a lot of detail in this room. Was it even used for anything?

There's a carved Golem in this guys house.

The dragons responsible for the destruction or recreation of the world are actually in the church. It appears similar to a yin-yang.

The thing on the Chimera Lab building was always pretty disturbing to me. It looks like it could be...um... a Freudian metaphor. I'm sure that says more about me than it does the videogame. I wonder if it was intentional.

Club Titiboo looks like Dalaam from Mother 2/Earthbound. They even have elephant statues. Dalaam also had a lot of ropes as opposed to ladders, and the Ropeway is the only way to access this place.

The Snowmen in this area resemble the ones found in Magicant in Mother 2/Earthbound.

This is possibly the ship mentioned in Leder's speech. The White Ship that arrived at Nowhere Islands.

And here's another depiction of the dragons in New Pork City.

This room is seen near the end of the game. I'd just like to point out that there is a Phase Distorter and Porkey's Machine. Both are time traveling devices of sorts. I'll leave it up to someone else to start wild mass guessing! It may not have been such a bad ending after all.

Here's a few similarities in Porkey's toy room I noticed, but I'm pretty sure they are just coincidences and unintentional. There's a tin robot in Porky's room that resembles robot Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo. They were just generic tin toy robot lookalikes in the first place though. There's a UFO that could be a Skyrunner toy. The teddybears, sarcophagus, and jukebox are blatantly from Mother 2 however. Also the bike. There's what appears to be a Gamecube next to the Jukebox.

And most importantly, Porkey seems to have stolen Homer Simpson's car.

Probably another coincidense, it doesn't even look like a sedan. But how many pink cars do you see? Unless it's that pink car from Thunderbirds...I'm just going to leave this one alone for awhile.

Mentioned in another post that this looks like the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks lore.

Oh yeah, Hinawa's grave says MILF.

I absolutely love the attention to detail Mother 3 has. I'm almost glad it was delayed and put on the Gameboy Advance. There's something about N64 graphics that look so bizarre that an Earthbound game would have fit there. Oh well, I'd rather a more polished detail filled game that looks amazing.

Saturday, 21 January 2012

I just noticed Earthbound Central posted a link to my blog, thank you.

Most of the song coincidences were posted by random people on that blog's comments section though... If you want to be credited please let me know. (Or if you have any other song similarities you've discovered.) I just didn't think to credit it.

The music from Mother 3's Forest Sanctuary sounds like the refrain of The Lady in My Life, by Micheal Jackson. Mother 3 has themes of balance and duality. The struggle between nature and technology, which is echoed in the nature of the dragons. The Forest Sanctuary isn't used, from what I remember of the game. You enter your name, and save. However, it's one of the few areas of the game that has a picture of the dragons. The black and white dragons look pretty similar to the yin-yang, which of course represents the nature of duality. What better music to use, than a Micheal Jackson sample? He had both white and black skin colour. He looked androgynous, and tried to appear younger the older he became.

The song similarity be intentional, as many people have pointed out that Natural Killer Cyborg sounds like Beat It. I think I am over-analyzing the rest of it, but I think it's oddly fitting even if it's just a coincidence.

In a previous blog post I mentioned that the Magypsy Theme from Mother 3 sounds like Komm, Susser Tod from the End of Evangelion soundtrack. However, I was browsing wikipedia, and it mentions that Komm, Susser Tod may borrow its melody from the Procol Harum song, A Whiter Shade of Pale from 1967. The wikipedia entry also mentions Kom Susser Tod shares similarities to the Beatles' song, Hey Jude. The Mother games are full of Beatle samples.

Judge for yourself though, because I can't tell if I'm hearing things or not.

Friday, 20 January 2012

I loved the Beatles when I was younger. I'm surprised whenever I find a new music similarity in the
Mother games.

Mother 3's Passing Down Secrets

The Beatles Come Together

I'll be posting a Micheal Jackson and Mother 3 connection next, and the Pokemon music similarities. Also a little analyzing on why Micheal Jackson actually fits surprisingly well into the theme of the game...

Thanks to Evan, who commented in my last post, I realized that hthe Club TitiBoo song and Honkey Tonk aren't actually the same song. Although, they sound similar.

Hey, there. I totally appreciate what you're doing, but you do realize that in the the song you mentioned as the derivative for KK Blues and Club Titiboo is completely different than these two game tunes. While it is true that they feature strikingly similar rhythm sections, they don't feature the same lead melody whatsoever. I've been immersed with blues/jazz at college due to my major, and what you're hearing is the standard 12-Bar-Blues form of most blues/jazz standards. You see, most blues compositions don't derive from this progression of chords, and there's a whole history behind that that I won't go into... Listening to all three pieces, I could see why you would think they're the same, but in blues, the progression stays the same, while the key and melody changes. So, in reality, Club Titiboo is a much more legal-friendly, and also original, song than most of Keiichi Suzuki's work on MOTHER 2 that featured direct movements from other pieces of music.

Thanks. From now on anything I post will just be labeled as a similarity, as opposed to an actual use of the song. Although, I think this was the only song that I believed to be the same. I'm glad you corrected me, as I have no actual knowledge of music theory. I will be the first to say some of these connections require a lot of tinfoil hat, and maybe are best thought of as comparisons.

Sunday, 15 January 2012

I'm surprised I never saw this one mentioned. The Club Titiboo theme is actually Bill Dogget's Honkey Tonk Part 1, from 1956.

Here's the original:

Club Titiboo:

It also shows up in Animal Crossing, as K.K. Blues:

(As a side note, this is the second classic song that both Animal Crossing and Mother has used. The first was Johnny B Good which became the Hippy battle theme and K.K. Rockin')

Here's some random trivia, that may not be so random. David Lynch used the song Honkey Tonk Part 1 for his movie, Blue Velvet. Actually, that's how I first found this song. (It was already a weird movie but realizing I heard a song from Mother 3 halfway through just made it weirder.)

I may be grasping at straws, but I think Mother 3's 'Beach Combing', used appropriate for the beach area, is similar to the song titled 'Dance of Dream Man'

Lynch's films and the Mother series share the same basic concept. Basically, an idealized suburban American town, has deep dark secrets, strange occurrences, and disturbing examples human nature hidden underneath the surface. For example, Laura Palmer from the TV series Twin Peaks seemed like a normal highschool sweetheart. She was into heavy drugs, BDSM prostitution, because she was haunted by a demon. In Earthbound/Mother 2 it's a little more light hearted, but still, early on in the game you are attacked by a bunch of policemen. You have to rescue Paula from a bunch of cult members. You befriend a possible mob boss, Everest, who ends up jumping off of a building. And there's the whole Giygas thing.

Another strange, and probably coincidental, similarity is that there a strange giant character in Mother 3 and Twin Peaks. In Mother 3 we have Leder. He is mute giant, who rings the bell tower outside of Tazmily village. In Chapter 8 he is kidnapped, and the main characters discover the history of humanity before the game took place.

In Twin Peaks a giant appears to Cooper to give him many subtle clues. He's some sort of spirit that belongs another dimension, the Black and White Lodge. At one point, The Giant appears to Cooper a stage with red curtains. The Black and White lodge is full of red curtains. One of Lynch's trademarks are surreal scenes that take place in these dimensions with red drapes. For some reason, during Leder's speech in Mother 3, the room is red with red drapes on each side. The rest of the hotel where this takes place has dull, mute, neutral colours.

Giant appears to Cooper:

Leder in the red room:

The Black and White Lodge:

Red curtains are sort of common though, and the music connections aren't enough for me to be as certain as the Evangelion references in the previous post. It's worth posting at least.

Let's not forget the whole Tanetane island. I didn't notice anything visually similar. It's just Tanetane island is a total mindfuck on the level of a Lynch movie.

I never thought I'd be able to connect Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Mother 3 directly. But I stumbled across this music similarity.

One of the most iconic songs from the series is Komm, Suesser, Tod. It plays over some pretty surrealistic end of the world phenomenon during the End of Evangelion movie.

Pay attention to the beginning, especially from 0:26 to 0:50. It's the theme song for the Magypsies in Mother 3!

Listen to the one without sax if you can't hear it.

I doubt this was a coincidence!

If you are unaware, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a pretty influential anime from 1995. Basically Shinji Ikari has to pilot a purple cyborg giant named an Eva, to defend Tokyo3 from the Angels, mysterious beings that seek to penetrate Nerv's headquarters and bring about the end of the world. It was a 26 Episode TV series and had a follow up movie. It was pretty surreal.

It got me thinking about the possible similarities and connections Evangelion has with Mother 3. I think most of these are probably coincidences, unlike the songs I've posted which I think was intentional. (Potential spoilers after this!)

Mother 3 and Evangelion both have strong themes of Motherhood, and more importantly losing your Mother. The only people who can pilot the Eva Units are children who have lost their mothers. The 3 Eva pilots don't have a mother. The three main characters in Mother 3 are also motherless. Evangelion relies on strong Freudian symbolism. The Evas are the pilots mothers. Their mother's souls have been extracted and used as the evas soul. The pilots sit in a red orb, which is a symbolic womb. At the end of Mother 3, Porky enters a symbolic womb. The Absolutely Safe Capsule. He even rocks back and forth like a baby, and apparently seems content.

Absolute Safe Capsule

Both the End of Evangelion and end of Mother 3 had similar concepts. Once again, another spoiler warning.) Anyways, in EoE, project instrumentality was completed. It's pretty surreal and up for interpretation, but basically everybody apparently died, as the human race evolved into its next step. Shinji rejects this, because he finds his sense of identity. Anyone who wants to return has the ability to do so. In Mother 3, after the last needle is pulled, the Dragon destroys everything and resets earth to its natural balance. But, if you walk around you can talk to characters who have survived somehow. There's a very small flickr of hope during each of the endings.

Then there's the Diamond enemies from Mother 2 or Earthbound. It would appear as some other creature when in battle, however. Mother 2 was created around the same time when Evangelion first aired, so I think this was a coincidence. However, Mother 3 which was released in 2006 featured the diamond's returning as an actual enemy. It looks like a certain Angel from Eva. Still may just be a coincidence.

Minerali

Ramiel

Oddly enough, there is an enemy located near the end of the game with the previously mentioned diamond shaped enemy. It's only made out of light and energy. There was an Angel in Eva who appeared in the same fashion. It is strange that they both appear together. I may just be grasping at straws.

Fenomeno

Arael

I also want to say the barrier trio is an Evangelion reference, but, the only similarities is that they are possibly organic/biomechanical beings that are purple and in a group of three. Whatever, they're spectacular and deserve a mention anyways.

Alright this is my first post! It's well known that Mother 2, or Earthbound in the US, had many song sampled throughout their soundtrack. (I'll probably make a few blog posts about those.) But, Mother 3 probably has a lot more. I found this on Earthbound Central awhile ago. This lists a lot of the common ones, but there are many more people either haven't posted videos of , or haven't realized yet. (Or maybe I missed them.)

It's common knowledge that the Itoi, the creator of Mother is a huge Beatle fans. Also I believe the people who do Mother's music are as well. I was surprised to not see this listened in the above video at least. It's from the shop bazaar early in the game.

At about 11 seconds you can hear a sample from the Beatles' Back in the U.S.S.R. from the White album. It repeats a few times throughout the song.

I haven't seen this one mentioned anywhere, even though it is a Beatles song. At one point in Mother 3, you end up in a dilapted, musty and moldy bar. It's one of the best places in the game. There is a Jukebox that plays a few songs, including Blessing. (Baldy's recommendation.)

This is a sample from the chorus of Here, There and Everywhere from the Revolver album. It starts about 30 seconds in.

"There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking but she doesn't know he's there"

It's so nice when you can sing the Beatles lyrics along to some of these songs in Mother 3. I have a feeling they wrote lyrics for all the songs, if Smiles and Tears and Theme of Love is any indication. That might be wishful thinking though. :)